


you outshine the morning sun

by beccasaur



Category: Marvel
Genre: 1872 (Marvel), Battleworld (Marvel), F/M, Is it an AU if it's canon?, Wild West AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:56:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5045644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beccasaur/pseuds/beccasaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Mister and (the future) Missus Barnes kissed...</p>
<p>Set in Marvel's 1872 verse, prior to #1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you outshine the morning sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bucksnatalia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucksnatalia/gifts).



**I.**  
“You ain't got nowhere to go, miss.”

That's what he thinks. Even this blue-eyed deputy, almost a match for her in this fight, underestimates her.

Natasha doesn't mind. Perhaps it grates the nerves a little, occasionally, to be discounted because she is a woman, but ultimately, it's an advantage. Nobody expects her to be doing anything other than sitting demurely, waiting for a man to sweep her off her feet and marry her.

They sure as hell wouldn't expect her to be an assassin. Wanted posters be damned – nobody believes them. Nobody expects it, even when she has a pistol to their forehead, a knife at their throat.

She might have no weapons now, she might be surrounded by the deputy and his men, but she is not helpless. And she recognises that he's realised that. He knows this isn't as simple as it looks.

He looks like he's _enjoying_ that fact. Must be a dull life, here in Timely.

This is what she's good at, getting out of these situations; adrenaline thrums through her veins, a constant rush. She can taste it, heavy on her tongue, hear it in her ears, louder than a waterfall. It's everywhere, undeniable. Natasha is at her best in these moments.

“It looks like you're right,” she says, voice pitched low as she steps closer, ignoring the shifting of his men, the unease they feel at her being here, calm. Most of their female criminals are probably drunks, or thieves; Natasha's always a class of her own. There's only one of her. 

(There's twenty-eight, or there were. Most of those are dead, now.)

“Uh...” Add this boy to the list of men she's made speechless, it seems. His eyes are sky blue, up close, unexpected depth behind them, but that's not why she's here. Survival comes first; it always does, carved into her heart. There is little she cares about more than keeping herself safe.

Most people don't understand it. Survival. Most people don't know.

A smile lifts Natasha's lips, just for a moment, and then she's kissing the deputy, nothing more than a light press of her mouth to his, but more, she thinks, than he anticipated.

He's frozen in place so long that he doesn't even notice that she's leapt up onto a horse until she's brandishing his own pistol at him, brain working to catch up.

He looks awed, and his fingers touch his lips. Natasha tosses her braid over her shoulder, and gives him a smile.

“I'll be seeing you, Deputy Barnes.”

  
**II.**  
In another world, they would be lying in lush green, a gentle breeze rustling leaves as it floats over them, nothing but the sound of birdsong. Or, perhaps, they'd be somewhere colder, huddled inside with blankets and a roaring fire as snow falls outside the window.

(She's always felt comfortable with the cold.)

But here they are, instead: sitting in the shadow of a lone tree, dust clinging to their clothes. The horse whinnies softly, stamping its feet and raising clouds of sand that she inhales, sticking to the roof of her mouth and making it dry. The sun is at its hottest, here, yellow beams on top of them. Natasha thinks her hair is sticking to her forehead in a most unattractive manner, she certainly mourns being able to wear pants on a regular basis, instead of all these skirts...

And yet, there is not a single place on this earth that she would rather be. Leave her in the desert forever, because when there is a man looking at her like this – like _she_ is the sun – she can't deny how it makes her feel.

It's cliché. It's more than cliché; here she is, alone with a deputy, and not for the first time.

Rash, perhaps, but she likes him. She knows he's not gonna arrest her now. They might be diametrically opposed on the surface, but Natasha knows that's not true. They are the same, deep down, made of the same stuff. That kind of bond, one of the soul, is undeniable.

“What?” They are sitting here, pressed shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, and though she's looking ahead of them, at the unending, uninterrupted view ahead of them, she can feel his eyes boring into her.

He says nothing, and she turns her head to look at him, and oh—it is not _boring_ so much as _gazing,_ a contemplative look on his face, a small smiling curling his lips upwards.

Natasha's lips lift of their own accord as she looks at him, echoing the softness written into the lines on his face, smoothing all those rough corners she knows to only be on the exterior, now.

He kisses her suddenly (and yet, not so suddenly at all; things have been building to this since they started sneaking off together. This is merely the dam being knocked down and a rush of desire flooding towards her), an arm caught around her waist, the other sliding into her hair, dislodging pins and leaving red tendrils over her shoulders.

She doesn't mind that she'll never be able to find some of those pins amongst the dust again. She doesn't mind when he pushes her backwards, hand cushioning her head, and they spend so long lying there in the dirt that this dress will never be clean. She doesn't mind that there's no going back from this.

Why would she want to?

  
**III.**  
It's instinct; she hears a noise in the middle of the night, and she reaches for the knife beneath her pillow. (Quicker and simpler than having to load a pistol at speed, quieter in the aftermath than having a shot echo around town, and there'd be a lot of blood to clean up whichever weapon she used.) Her hand closes around the hilt, and she sits up slowly, a ghost in the moonlit dark.

Natasha knows which floorboards creak, stepping over them on tiptoes like a dancer – she'd have liked to dance, she thinks, in another life – ignoring the cold of the floor seeping up bare legs.

She clings to the shadows like they cling to her soul, one and the same, silent as she reaches the window and its _tap-tapping_ , flinging open the drapes with her free hand.

James. Of course.

Eyes rolling, she hauls the window up, knife still clutched in her hand; amusement lifts her lips, regardless, as he leans over the sill, beckoning her closer.

“You shouldn't be here,” she murmurs, blocking his way into the room. “Someone might see you.” The cool breeze makes her nightdress flap around her legs, hair loose and blowing.

(He thinks she looks beautiful like this.)

He chuckles, hand sliding up to her cheek so he can pull her into a kiss, Romeo and Juliet style through the window, slow and leisurely, as though he isn't hanging out the outside of her building for all to see.

This will have a happier ending than the tale of star-cross'd lovers, she is certain of it.

“I know. You gonna stab me, or let me in?”

  
**IV.**  
“Mister Barnes.”

“Missus Barnes.”

She's not smiled this much in her life; Natasha's cheeks hurt from it, her insides feel warm, even that cold heart of hers pounding so quickly that it might run away from her, circle Timely in a lap of honour before it finds its way back to her chest. 

There have been many names that have been hers, sliding them on the same way she does a new hat – Natalia, Natasha, Nadine; Widow and Shadow and Death – but this one feels right. It feels like it belongs, not just as a costume or a face she wears, but in her heart.

Missus Natasha Barnes. 

James scoops her up in his arms, skirts and all, nudging the door to his house – _their_ house – open with his hip as he carries her over the threshold, from her old life and all its problems into her new one. Her life with him. Together. Partners.

She isn't naïve. The problems don't just get wiped away because she's a missus, now, the red she has accumulated is not washed clean, but stains her hands forever. But she can worry about it less, with him. She's not worried about marring the white of his soul with her blood-soaked fingers. If anything, he'll dilute it, just a little bit.

He's a good person. She is not, but she will try to be.

There is barely room in the hallway for it, but James spins her in a circle anyway, the laugh falling from her lips easily; once, it would have been harder, tugged forcefully from a heart she'd made cold to protect herself. Now she's with her _husband_ , and she feels happy.

It's still a foreign feeling.

James doesn't put her down yet, but bends towards her, lips pressing against hers with tenderness, soft and warm, and she can feel the smile lifting them as he does, as her hand finds his cheek.

It's not their first kiss as husband and wife – that happened in the church, after the two words that are now most important to her. But it's their first kiss as husband and wife alone.

  
**V.**  
She can feel her heart thudding in the back of her mouth, foreign and strange. There's an acid taste on her tongue, and she tries to swallow it down, wash it away, but it lingers, sharp and bitter.

Natasha doesn't like this. She doesn't want him to do this.

Danger is no stranger to her, to either of them; it's something she's courted her entire life, something she knows how to face without flinching. Of course there are things that scare her – she is, despite everything, still human – but it's something she can use to help her, turn into a weapon and throw against someone. People expect her to be weak, so she acts it, luring them unsuspecting into her web.

James knows it, too; he's a deputy, dealing with outlaws on a daily basis. People like her. She could have killed him, if she wanted to. She just didn't.

But this doesn't sit right with her. Unknown enemies, people not who they say they are, _lynchings—_

He shouldn't do this.

She knows she can't stop him.

So she reaches up, straightens his necktie, hands smoothing down over his chest. There's a smile on her face, but it doesn't ring true, too much worry filling her eyes like tears that might spill over. He knows this, too, he always knows, but he gives her a similar smile back as she hands him his hat, setting it on his head and tilting it back to she can kiss him, long and lingering, fingers curled tight into his jacket.

He has to pry them off, carefully, lifting her hands and kissing each one before he lets them go.

“Be safe out there.” It's a silly thing to say, it's not like he's going to _try_ to get himself hurt, but she needs to reassure him (herself) all the same. He does have something of a tendency to get himself into trouble.

He gives her a lopsided grin, bending to kiss her again before he's out the door.

“Always am, doll.”

It's the last time she gets to kiss him. It's the last time she sees that smile. It's the last time it's the last time—

  
**VI. and one time they didn't.**  
“Natasha...”

Steve's voice echoes, distant and tinny; she is underwater, grief pushing her deeper down, filling her mouth and threatening to choke her so violently that she knows she'll never wake from it.

Right now, that doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Right now, she doesn't care.

Not too long ago, she didn't know how to use her heart at all. Now it has been shattered into pieces and crushed beneath the toe of Fisk's boot, leaving her chest empty and cavernous. The looming darkness slides from her throat into the space, rattling around inside her with every breath she takes.

What have you done to her, Mister Barnes? Why did she have to let you in?

Because this should not have happened. He is – _was_ – a deputy, she's a criminal; they should have remained on opposite sides, where things made sense, knowing which side of the line they stood on with their guns drawn. Now it's blurred so much that Natasha doesn't know where she stands. Who she is.

She can't go back to who she was before him, and she can't be who she was _with_ him. What is left? 

What remains: one grave, one hollow epitaph, one broken heart.

“Natasha, let me walk you home.”

She wants to laugh; home, a place of warmth and love, firelit evenings with her in his arms, humming a song as they dance around, peppered kisses and laughter, everything in soft, flickering oranges.

Home, a dark, cold place, four walls without its heart. Without James, it's—

As empty as her chest.

“I need a minute,” she says, firm enough to cut off the sheriff's protestations, gloved fingers pressing to her lips and then the headstone, skirts rustling as she kneels beside it. A minute more before she puts a lid on how she's feeling, bottles it up so that she can use it as a weapon when she seeks what she most wants.

Revenge. 

“And it's Missus Barnes.”

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of canon character death that happened prior to issue #1.


End file.
